Lot de 87 DVD

Hello, so today  to llustrate the notion of  myths and heroes, I have chosen to speak about Bobby Sands. Firstly, I would like to define this notion.  A myth it can be a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a population or explaining a natural or social phenomenon. Besides, it may typically involve supernatural beings. It can also be a widely held but false belief or idea.  A hero it is a person who is admired for his courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. It may be the chief male characters in a book, play, or film, who is typically identified with good qualities, and with whom the reader is expected to sympathize.

So we may wonder why are myths and heroes so important in our society?

 To answer this question, we are first going to see the troubles during the independance of Ireland, and secondly we are going to see the fight of Bobby Sands.

• The first document entitled "Northern Ireland: A brief background to the conflict”. This article talks about  Troubles in Ireland. The Irish and the English had been at war for centuries about the independance of Ireland. Northern Ireland was  shared beetween two communities:

  - the Protestant and Unionists who wanted to be part of the United Kingdom, and

 - the Catholics and Republicans who wished they would one day be considered as       Irish, not as British.

In 1969, the civil rights movement calling for an end to these discriminations was severely repressed by the police apparatus which is almost exclusively composed of loyalist. This repression leads to a reactivation of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and marks the beginning of a long-running conflict commonly called the Troubles. On 30 January 1972, in Derry, in the west of the province, a peaceful demonstration for civil rights and the end of internment without trial is attacked by paratroopers who indiscriminately shot at the crowd and killed thirteen people. This date will be remembered under the name of "Bloody Sunday" and involves a mass recruitment of young nationalists in the IRA. We also studied in classroom the song of U2 called “ Sunday Bloody Sunday”.

• The second document entitled “ Death of Bobby Dands in 1981 put human face to Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ ”. It was a newspapper article of the New York Daily News publied in 2012 and written by Larry Mcshane.

In this document, we grab a couple of information about Bobby Sands.

First of all, Bobby Sands is an activist who fought for the republican cause. He was the leader  of the IRA  who was arrested by the police in 1977 because he had a gun in his possession. He was also  accused of committing bomb attacks, car bombings of killing both British soldiers and Protestants civilians.

 Yet, he was sentenced to fourteen years of imprisonment since he was considered as a dangerous criminal by the British governement. 

In 1981, Bobby and nine of his comrades started  a hunger strike at the Maze prison in Belfast. They made  a hunger strike in order to be given back their special category status instead of being considered as common-law prisoners.

Indeed, M.Thatcher who was  prime minister aimed to make them treated as criminal against the State. Yet, she refused to yield on the grounds that they had no political legitimacy; they had not been elected by the Irish people. Besides, she didn’t want to negotiate with them insofar as they were criminals. Consequently, Sands and the nine other prisoners died. Far from fading, Bobby Sands’ action and stature has kept increasing and has turned him into a heroic figure.

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